Ozzie Albies had a game Saturday that most players only dream about. He homered twice, and the second one ended the game. That alone is rare. But it’s the kind of rare that puts you in the history books with a guy like Justin Upton.
The Braves beat the Brewers 4-3 at Truist Park, thanks to Albies’ walk-off two-run shot in the ninth inning. It was his 12th homer of the season and his fourth career walk-off. The last Atlanta player to hit multiple homers in a game including a walk-off was Upton back in 2013.
Before all that drama, the game looked like it might belong to Brewers starter Kyle Harrison. He carried a perfect game into the fifth inning. No Braves hitter had even reached base. Then Albies crushed a solo homer, and suddenly it was a real game.
Harrison ended up allowing four hits and two runs over 6 1/3 innings. Not bad. But his offense couldn’t quite protect him.
A costly error flipped the momentum
The Braves took a brief lead, but the sixth inning got messy. Albies booted a double-play grounder from Brice Turang, and that mistake led to two unearned runs for Milwaukee. Chris Sale had been dealing for Atlanta — five hits, two unearned runs, seven strikeouts and one walk across 101 pitches — but he took the loss off the board when the defense let him down.
Then the Brewers stretched it to 3-1 in the seventh on an RBI single from Andrew Vaughn. Things looked grim for Atlanta, which had been 3-25 this season when trailing after eight innings.
But Matt Olson singled off Aaron Ashby in the ninth with one out. That brought up Albies. Two pitches later, the ball was gone.
Ashby came into the game with a 10-1 record. He took his first loss after failing to close it out. Dylan Lee pitched a scoreless ninth to get the win and improve to 3-0.
Albies now has four walk-off homers in his career. The Braves are feeling good about taking the series, and that’s not nothing in a tight NL East race. They’ll take the win, even if it came the hard way.
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